I learned the basics of ASP.NET with the second edition of this book. Having skimmed through the latest third edition, it appears the information has been refined even further and includes more material including practical tutorials and advice for deploying your ASP.NET site as well as the inclusion of AJAX.
To my knowledge, it was the first book to incorporate both VB and C#, which was its initial appeal. The author(s) very deliberately choose to avoid the some of the latest trendy topics that could stand to overwhelm or confuse you and instead focus on making sure you know what it is all built on and providing you with enough practical working knowledge of ASP.NET, VB and C# to make you "dangerous". I had no issues getting the code to compile and simply Googled my way through a couple typos in that second edition, which is actually a very healthy learning activity if you are truly engaged in the topic.
It is an easy and engaging read. Nearly all of my questions that arose as I worked through the book were anticipated and addressed at the perfect time. The book is also packed full of practical aside tips and hints that one will encounter in most of the daily ASP.NET development tasks.
Within a short time, I was able to tackle ASP.NET projects at my job. What I hadn't learned from the book, I was able to figure out by leveraging what it had covered. In a nutshell, it was the perfect starting point. From there, I read Imar Spaanjars' excellent Beginning ASP.NET book (always a good idea to learn from at least 2 good sources as a novice) and moved up to the comprehensive professional ASP.NET book(s) by Scott Hanselman & Devin Rader.